Where: Asia, North America, Oceania
Solutions: Biodiversity and nature-based solutions, Ocean and life below water, Climate adaptation and resilience
GRP (Guidelines for Reducing Plastic Waste & Sustainable Ocean and Climate Action Acceleration) is the global environmental guidelines and certification for climate change adaptation and reduction of plastic. GRP is announced by the Association for Supporting the SDGs for the UN (ASD), and was selected as the best practices in mainstreaming SDGs by the UN ESCAP.
The GRP consists of 30 major backgrounds and 39 global guidelines including comprehensive content on global environmental issues such as reducing plastics, protecting marine ecosystems and responding to climate change, and is based on the SDGs, the fifth report of the IPCC, Paris Agreement, UN Ocean Conference.
ASD legalized and institutionalized Guidelines for reducing plastic waste (GRP) with the National Assembly. Also, private Key partners are CJ CheilJedang (one of Asia’s largest bio-food corporations); UNIQLO Co. Ltd. (fashion corporations); SK Hynix (the world’s largest semiconductor corporation); HSBC (a global financial enterprise); KT (a global telecommunication corporation); Hyundai Department Store and Hyundai Livart (a major furniture company in South Korea); CJ Olive Young Corporation (health and beauty); CJ Logistics, etc. 30 corporations are raising and proceeding with an environmental fund of approximately 10 billion won.
Global food corporation, CJ CheilJedang, was advised by ASD to recycle the packaging of the company’s major Home Meal Replacement food. They also urged them to replace the container of their rice product to be more eco-friendly material. For the past 20 years, 1.7 billion Home Meal was produced and the quantity of the plastic used for this amount can wrap the globe 6 times. As an outcome, CJ CheilJedang innovatively reduced the amount of plastic applied per package, which brought a reduction of 340t of plastic and 550t of CO. Similarly, Hyundai Department Store has drastically cut down plastic wrapping and packaging.
Reducing plastic and climate change adaption are critical issues that must be resolved in a timely manner. However, these issues are one of the biggest challenges for global corporations as they must take responsibility for the additional cost of materials and personnel expenses to approach and handle it. Therefore, GRP can be a role model as a response to our current environmental crisis.
GRP Guidelines advises corporations in making an impact through small changes. For instance, ASD advised initiating a change by replacing or reducing the use of disposable paper cups and plastic forks in corporate settings.
Photos provided by ASD
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